[I am sharing this news report written for the Winter Oak site]
[UPDATE. President Ruto has just announced that the Finance Bill will be withdrawn. It looks like victory for the young protesters, though calls are still being made for him to resign]
Tumultuous events have been unfolding in Kenya this week.
Thousands upon thousands of young people have been taking to the streets across the east African country in protest at the Finance Bill being imposed by the government of President William Ruto.
It was passed by parliament on Tuesday June 25, with opponents warning that it “will raise the cost of living despite many people already struggling to put food on the table”.
Although a number of the unpopular proposals were withdrawn at the last minute, this was not enough to quell public anger.
In dramatic scenes, protesters stormed parliament buildings in Nairobi, starting a fire.
And the police opened fire on the crowds with live bullets.
A CNN reporter described how he “saw police shoot dead unarmed young men in front of Kenya’s parliament” and reports say at least five were killed in the capital.
By 5.45am on Wednesday June 26, 157 casualties were recorded at Kenyatta National Hospital alone.
In Githurai at least 22 people were said to have been shot dead by police.
If this brutal response seems reminiscent of the violence of past colonial repression, then that is because the same evil empire is behind it.
The day before parliament was stormed, US President Joe Biden officially designated Kenya a Major Non-NATO Ally, “a powerful symbol of the country’s strategic importance to the United States, offering Kenya a range of military and financial advantages”.
And the Finance Bill resulted from the fact that Kenya is currently submitted to “structural reforms” by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – in other words by the global criminocracy.
As ever, debt is the tool of domination, with the “need” to pay off the imperial usurers used as the excuse to “gut the middle class” and “drive more people into poverty”, as one recent article put it.
Kenyan people are being hit with a range of new taxes, which the government says are “to fund development programmes and cut public debt” – in other words to line the criminocrats’ pockets!
The murderous violence deployed by Ruto and his regime is hardly like to calm the situation.
At the time of writing, the “7 days of rage” proposed by the protest movement had not ended, with calls for main roads to be blocked and President Ruto’s State House to be occupied on Thursday June 27.
A new hashtag has been trending on social media – #tupatanethursday, a mix of Swahili and English meaning “see you on Thursday”.
And there are signs that other Africans could be inspired by the Kenyan revolt to rise up against the death grip of the global financial empire.
As one Nigerian observer commented: “The bravery of the people of Kenya is an inspiration to the rest of Africa”.
Source: https://paulcudenec.substack.com/p/young-kenyans-rise-up-against-the
Article courtesy of Paul Cudenac. https://paulcudenec.substack.com/
